Tuesday, August 30, 2011

As feared/hoped, voucher program drains public schools

Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.It's a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools.

And, of course, a scenario that public-school critics have long yearned for.

Under a law signed in May by Gov. Mitch Daniels, more than 3,200 Indiana students are receiving vouchers to attend private schools. ...Until Indiana started its program, most voucher systems were limited to poor students, those in failing schools or those with special needs. But Indiana's is significantly larger, offering money to students from middle-class homes and solid school districts. Nearly 70 percent of the vouchers approved statewide are for students opting to attend Catholic schools...

The South Bend district expects to lose $1.3 million in funding if all the students who have signed up for vouchers leave.

But I'm sure the competition will inspire them to improve, despite the loss of funds.

Posted at 08:46:07 AM

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Indiana, unlike Chicago/Illinois, is *not* a low tax state. It is a very high, almost overbearing tax state.

There is plenty of room for Chicago to raise property taxes in order to aid the ailing Chicago Public Schools, just like they did recently.

Perhaps Indiana is already taxed to the max and they need to try something different in order to save the children?

Hopefully Chicago will never, ever have to resort to such lunacy, but my guess is the Chicago property owners will see the shear folly of Indiana's ways and make sure it never happens here.

Eric, was that last line, "But I'm sure the competition will inspire them to improve, despite the loss of funds", sarcastic or what you really believe? If it's sarcasm, can you explain why you believe that will not happen?

I think that some schools/students/teachers/principals who remain in the public system will highly motivated to improve and some won't be. Some will actually improve and some won't. It's not really such a black and white situation though. Some schools, I am assuming, perform subpar because of too many students in one class. Well, if 70% of them leave, then just that situation alone will be improved. 70% fewer kids to teach, 70% fewer textbooks to buy, computers to buy, supplies, etc. For the first year, the teacher ratio will be very low. The next year it won't because the budget to pay them will be smaller and they will let some of them go, unless they can win some of the 70% projected to leave this year. In the end, this might be a big boost for public education.

On the private side, the side benefits could be higher numbers of student families attending more services and donating more of their time and money to the churchs that the parochial schools belong to. This can only be a plus for them. Even if in two years out they lose 50% of those who came the first year or two, they still come out ahead. For the students who attend, it's highly likely they will get better grades and have more after-school-sports and after-school-activity participation. Most private schools pride themselves in getting close to 100% participation in at least one or more sports or music, art or foreign language options. Fewer kids will be bored and have too much free time to get into trouble later.

As a solution, I propose that well-to-do liberals who send their own children to private school be subject to a special tax which would go to fund vouchers so that less well-to-do families can do the same. Its only fair..

There is sort of an assumption here that all of a school's costs are fixed. Some costs will, or should, go down with fewer students. And public schools will feel the urgency of improvement. One can argue about whether middle class folks should get voucher money, but to compel any kid to go to a perpetually failing school is inexcusable.

@Boris - You're missing the point. If it doesn't accept my kid, it accepts someone else's, with a voucher paid for in part by my tax money. How is that fair?

@Greg - The ideal situation would be for you libertarians to just retire to a private island so you could torment only each other with your selfishness and leave the rest of us to build a sane society.

@Pan
Your desire to "build a sane society" is nothing more than your desire to be a social engineer, to impose your ideas and believes on others. You want to be selfless at other people's expense. That actually seems rather selfish to me.

And no I didn't miss the point. Notre Dame University may refuse to accept your kid, while accepting someone with a Federal grant. Do you have a problem with that? Your liberal/progressive philosophy implies that the needy are ENTITLED to someone else’s resources. Yet when it is convenient to you, you all of a sudden speak of those resources as YOUR money!?

But in the vain of your spurious hypocritical whining: is it fair for one’s tax dollars to go to anyone’s education when that person has no kids at all?

@Boris, you bring up some great points in your rebuttal to Pan, esp. the ND/Federal grant example (oh no Wendy C., another Catholic institution getting federal dollars - the horror!). But in your last sentence, I'm hoping you are being a bit sarcastic, as I'm happy to have my tax dollars go to support the future of our country, i.e, make sure young people are ready to take on the world. And if it's vouchers that give parents choice, so much the better; I have a lot more confidence that choice in this matter will lead to a better educated populace.

Pan- haven't we as a society been at public education for over 200 years here? Isn't the definition of insanity repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Wouldn't that make this society insane and the ideal Libertarian one just an untested experiment? Why not see what happens in Indiana?

More seriously, what is the size of the voucher compared to the cost to educate a public school student. It seems to me that, for example, if the cost is $5,000 while the voucher is $1,500, the school district keeps $3,500 while the expense of the kid is gone. It's more complicated than that, but so is the situation that is simplistically portrayed by the pro-government school crowd.

I continue to be unclear why the government runs a school system to begin with. And Pan, why don't you social engineers retire to an island and leave the rest of us alone?

---I don't have any kids of my own, but am happy to pay for others to go to school so that when I go anywhere or try to do anything, the people who work there have the knowledge to do the appropriate work. I also pay for people to pick up garbage that's not mine, health care for those who can't afford it otherwise, streets that I never drive on, police to protect everyone & not just me, fire depts to stop fires that might burn my house down if I live next door to one that catches on fire, other things. Seems people have gone from a "we're all in this together" mentality to an "I've got mine, and you can have what's left" mentality, and that's just sad.

Not all students represent the same expense to the schools, plus private schools don't have any obligation to take any particular student. What this will lead to is simply "cherry-picking" by the private schools to get the cheapest students. This will lead to more cost overruns at public schools, more gross caricatures of "inefficient goverment buraucracy" etc. etc.

@Joseph J. Finn
I am pretty sure Wendy was referencing the Federal Constitution when she mentioned "Separation of church and state".

As to the Indiana Constitution, the vouchers are for the benefit of the children, not for the benefit of any religious or theological institution. I am sure the state of Indiana runs a Medicare program. Is it unconstitutional for Catholic hospitals to receive Medicare money?

Sarcasm aside, what you libertarians can't seem to get your heads around is that society = social engineering. There is a tension between rights and freedoms, the trick in a society is to find a balance.

I have a right to swing my arm wherever I want, don't I? Well, I'm guessing that if my swinging arm connects with your face, you'd say no, I don't have that right. Passing a law to restrict my swinging arm from connecting with your face may be an abridgement of my "rights", but it is necessary for society to exist in reasonably harmony with reasonable chance of continuing without everyone destroying everyone else in their selfish pursuit of their own "rights".

@Pan 'we have "government-run schools" so that the citizenry can get an education'

You mean so that the ones needing education the most can get the least education, right? That's the practice of it. (You nonsense reminds me of those who say "socialism/communism" was a great noble idea, the Soviet Block just botched up the implementation.) But then of course they'll be ignorant and vote for your social engineering programs.

@Terry McG & LizH

I indeed was ironic in my last paragraph about a person without kids paying for others. My point was that once we broadly agree to publicly finance something, presumably for a common good, Pan's demands for getting some specific individual treatment on the basis of where that money went is ludicrous.

We've had private schools a lot longer than we've had public schools, yet the evidence shows that public schools do at least as good a job, if not better, than private schools. When you control for socio-economic factors and selection bias, there is no evidence that private schools do better than public schools.

I don't see the private schools that operate in my area doing cherry picking to avoid kids with learning issues like autism and ADHD. I also see them taking in those students that flounder in public schools due to lack of direction, attention and extra help. These would be the discipline problems. I am not saying that cherry picking doesn't happen at all. I am saying that it's not as exclusionary as you might think. I would guess those with severe issues are not going to apply to private schools because the private schools don't have the specific resources to help the really severe issues.

Me too. It's amazing how far this country has lurched to the right. So many things that were unthinkable a dozen years ago are now mainstream. People don't even realize what they're agreeing with. Someday people will realize what a bill of goods we've been sold, but I'm afraid it will be too late by then.

"The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another....No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State."

"The Supreme Court decided Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist and Sloan v. Lemon in 1973. In both cases, states—New York and Pennsylvania—had enacted laws whereby public tax revenues would be paid to low-income parents so as to permit them to send students to private schools. It was held that in both cases, the state unconstitutionally provided aid to religious organizations."

MCN, just as I noted that not all of a school's costs are fixed, many of them are, so I don't think the savings would be as direct and dramatic as your example. If a school spends 5 thousand per kid, if one kid leaves, the school doesn't save 5K because virtually all of its expenses are the same.

Dienne, I think the status quo of public schools as a one-size-fits-all is not the best option for all kids. Just as the reason that public schools were started in the past because as a society we wanted all to have an education, we might consider that public schools are not always the best option of all kids in today's society. What's wrong with changing things up to fit what's happening now? I get that the end results are just about even with the public and private, but in the end, it's about each kid and public school might not fit a specific kid.

"But I'm sure the competition will inspire them [public schools] to improve, despite the loss of funds."

Perhaps it will, but that is not the most important question. The more important question is will the educational results for the individual students improve. Educating the students is the real issue. Whether it is done through a state run school or vouchers used in private schools matters much less than the results.

MCN makes a great point about modern public education. I think that kids achieve despite the government's role in providing education and not because of it. Lower class kids don't have a chance in the current system because public schools don't have the academic focus and discipline to prepare them for the real world.

@Pan "So let's replace it by giving them no education at all. What's "ludicrous" is having to defend public education as a public good. People who believed otherwise used to be known as cranks. I miss those days."

So school vouchers equals "giving them no education at all"? Seriously? And now you claim that you weren't defending public education as a public good when you were defending your supposed right to get your kid admitted in a Catholic school if a voucher kid got admitted? That was public good?

Are you not able to see the difference between public financing of education and public running of education? The public good you are referring to presumably comes from kids getting educated, not from having state run schools, unless you feel the public good is obtained only if they are educated by your curriculum (which must include "How to be Cluless 101")

@Dienne

No one said that all public schools are bad or that student body factors are not at play. But even if there is both self-selection and cheery-picking in some voucher programs, is there something wrong with giving an opportunity to those more interested in giving their kids better education and those with greater potential, who otherwise would be stuck in the muck of much less interested and ineducable ones?

It has been widely reported that in Milwaukee, as measured by state administered tests, the results are the same among public and voucher receiving private school students. This is used to say that vouchers fail. What was omitted from the reports of the study was the researchers' conclusion that both public and private school results improved under the voucher program, which was the intended result. The study also dismissed the claim that private schools avoid special needs students.

Do you have the Indiana public school budget breakdown examples? I haven't had the time to search, but having some sense of facility vs. employee costs, I would guess 2/3rds of the costs are personnel costs. Those are definitely variable. Moreover, most of the fixed facility costs go down when schools are consolidated. My guess is - again, I haven't found the numbers yet, so just using my sense of numbers and business experience - only 10 to 15% of the costs are truly fixed.

While it seems like Catholic schools are the primary beneficiary of this program, it won't always be so. I imagine that the Indiana law is written in such a way that one could take their kid to *any* private school. So, as taxpayers, we would be forced to subsidize the education of those kids who are being taught that evolution is "just a theory," or that slavery wasn't so bad, that the Sun rotates around the Earth, or that jihad is inevitable.

I don't want my tax dollars spent on religious ideology masquerading as education, and I can understand that other people don't want to pick up the tab for my kids' education at Catholic school. (No, I don't want a voucher for my kids' education).

rayspace makes a good point. Can you imagine how up in arms the people of Indiana would be if 70% of those vouchers were being used to send kids to Muslim schools (the dreaded "madrassas"!)? So if you would argue against taxpayer funds being used for Muslim education, why is it okay to use funds for Catholic/Christian education?

Also, a point that has to be made, Indiana already had 100% school choice within the public system. Any Indiana resident can send his/her/their child(ren) to any Indiana public school, the only stipulation is that if you go outside your local school system, you have to get your kid to the school of your choice on your own, they won't bus except to your local school.

So this new voucher system isn't really about school choice, it's simply about destroying public education.

Well, Boris, many of the personnel costs are essentially fixed in that in that even if you go from 700 to 500 students, you still have a core of faculty, administrators, janitors, etc that aren't going decrease in correlation with students lost.

Now that is a really good point. I didn't realize that Indiana has 100% school choice and if that's true (and I don't doubt you) then one of the main arguments in favor of the voucher system disappears. The question becomes "if we have unlimited public school choice does a child have the right to a private education?" I'm inclined to answer "no." You may have turned me around on this issue.

By the way, if 70% of kids are choosing to go to a madrassa, we have much bigger problems than our education system.

"quote", I find myself agreeing with you today! Thanks for explaining the financial situation better than I could. I knew what I meant, that you'd have to "siphon off" an entire classroom or 2 to make any difference, but that would only be in the teacher's salary, as they wouldn't be able to demo a classroom out of a building (and they woudn't be able to make a library, or a music room, either, because there would still be no money for those things). And what happens when the schools receiving these kids fill up - would they still have a better education with more kids to try to control, and if any have reading disabilities, for example, & need extra help, would they get it? Or would they just drag the rest of the kids down with them? Or would the school refuse to admit them, leaving all the disruptive kids, and kids needing extra attention, and kids so poor they don't even get fed properly at home (and therefore don't learn as well as others) to the public schools, which now have even less money to deal them? Oh yeah, and I remember when the Catholic kids got to leave my school to go to religious education at the Catholic School, and I don't want to subsidize that either.

Come on, stop pretending that the main cost is not on teachers and that the number of teachers can go down fairly proportionate to the number of students, particularly when schools are consolidated. The same with support personnel.

ZORN REPLY -- This is a frivolous, shallow response. It's clear that there isn't a one-to-one marginal per student cost in schools that rises or falls based on curriculum. Otherwise, why would these Catholic schools be worried? They could just shrink and expand depending on how many enrollees they have. But no, we read that many of them are on the verge of closing or have closed or were about to close because of declining enrollment.
Why? Because there are a number of fixed costs in running any school or business and elasticity is greatly limited.
If you have a K-8 school, 9 grades, with 24 kids per classroom paying $10,000 a year, your expenses will drop negligibly if you lose 6 kids per classroom (you'll still need all the personnel you needed before to deal with classes of 18 students) but your income will drop by about half a million bucks. 6 x 9 x 10,000.
Under ideal conditions you might be able to merge with a nearby school and achieve somethings close to one to one savings, but let's not kid ourselves about the threat to public schools from voucher programs.

This is coming from an Atheist who has no love for any religious education: to the best of my understanding, and from the interaction with those who themselves went to as well as sent their kids to Catholic schools, Catholic schools (which is mainly what we are talking about here), while having some religious curriculum, are primarily, overwhelmingly, about just education. It is not Catholic education, it is education in Catholic schools, that can be received by Protestants, Jews and Muslims if they so desire without religious conversion. The comparison to schools of religious indoctrination (which is what people here must mean by Muslim schools, whether it is true or not) is shameless demagoguery.

But you apparently don't mind ideologies taught in public schools, for instance environmentalism and multiculturalism?

You don't suppose parents that think creationism is inappropriate would not send their kids to such a school and those who unfortunately cling to it will make sure to transmit this "knowledge" to their kids anyway?

P.S.
If the opponents of school vouchers were genuinely concerned with the threat of religious indoctrination, they would be demanding not the rollback of vouchers, but the requirement to allow voucher recipients to opt out of religious studies. Having not seen them do that, I can only conclude it is an entirely made up, grasping at straws issue.

ZORN REPLY -- Speaking for myself, I recognize the absurdity/futility of saying "If you take our voucher, you can to go St. Bertha's but you can't go to religion class if you do. First of all, good parochial schools infuse religion in many aspects of education and certainly some of the historical/ religious studies curriculum which, as I understand it, is far more historical and academic than it is evangelical or preachy. Second, such a prohibition would be just about impossible to enforce and possibly unconstitutional (the law is keeping you OUT of a religious service... doesn't sound right to me).
I'd be more OK with a voucher program that couldn't be used at parochial schools, but that still leaves us with the problem of government having to meddle with expressions of religion at otherwise private businesses or institutions, which also strikes me as offensive.
I don't want the government to say, "no, you can't start your private school day with a prayer to Jesus Christ," even as I don't want the government to say, "sorry, we're going to spend your tax dollars supporting schools that start their days with prayers to Jesus Christ."
I'd expect all you anti-gummit conservatives would be appreciative of my skepticism of the government's intrusion in any fashion into religion. And once again I'd be disappointed.

@Dienne re "So this new voucher system isn't really about school choice, it's simply about destroying public education."

You mean there is something of the inner city public education left to destroy?

Your statement betrays what your concern is really about: not about education and welfare of kids, but about "public" i.e. politically controlled aspect of it, perhaps about you are other social engineers losing another lever of influence, loosing relevance.

Boris, wouldn't that assume that enough students left the system in one class (or at least at one school) so that less teachers would be needed? What if the class size goes to 20? Would you combine classes to have 40 or more in a class? Or have kids take long bus rides to go to the school that now has room for them? Neither of which is conducive to good education. What if only 5 kids in every grade level leave? What would you do then? Have a teacher teach split grade classes? I think your "solution" is much too simplistic.

I believe the voucher system was not created to help parents get kids into better schools, there's no proof private institutions, or even charter schools, who accept every student that applies do better. The only private schools that achieve better scores are those that employ selective enrollment, the same improvement seen in Chicago's selective enrollment public schools.

I think vouchers were created to place more of the costs of education on the parents. Sure, money to public schools is being taken away, but the vouchers hardly cover the full costs of a private education. Declining enrollments will encourage further cuts in public education, but the costs of a private education will rise as these schools are forced to deal with higher enrollments. Guess who's gonna pay? What's left of the public school system will become a dumping ground for unwanted and special needs students, where barely the basics in curriculum will be taught due to deep cuts. Not quite the equal opportunity education deserved by all.

It's amazing to me how people who insist on hyper-accountability for every single one of their tax dollars suddenly throw that concept out the window when education is concerned. We have a public school system because that's the best way we can ensure that public funds are used for education, as opposed to handing over tax money to everybody with four walls who calls himself a "school."

Let's not forget the historical aspect of all this. When Southern schools were desegregated and white-only "academies" sprang up as a result, suddenly there was a major impetus for vouchers. I don't know about the "libertarians" here, but I'm pretty queasy about my tax money going to somebody who set up a school to keep black kids out.

--@Lizh
First of all the title of this thread is "Drain" not "trickle". But the math can be worked out with any reasonable numbers ("5 kids at every grade level leave" scenario is a very low chance one to warrant examination any more than "what if the teachers turn into flesh eating monsters"): 3 classes of 30 each become 2 classes of 30 each. Yes, if schools are consolidated, commutes go up. Maybe more time to listen to books on tape :-).

What you consider negatives, I consider positives. I think it would be great if more education costs were put on parents rather than the general public. As someone with no kids, I don't care a bit whether someone else's kid gets an education or not. It's none of my business.

There are good public schools and bad public schools. The bad public schools are already dumping grounds for unwanted and special needs students. I don't think they could get worse. The fact is that there already isn't equal opportunity in education. If I do have kids, I will do what every other responsible parent with the means to afford a decent education does, which is move to a suburb with like-minded people or send them to a good Catholic school or magnet school in the city.

"Dienne" wrote: "It's amazing how far this country has lurched to the right. So many things that were unthinkable a dozen years ago are now mainstream." Do you recall 1994 when the Republicans re-took the U.S. House after 40 unbroken years of Democratic control? This country lurched so far left in the mid 20th century that what is happening now may be amazing to those who grew up in that time period, in particular those living in certain urban areas of concentrated statism. However, in the large, it could simply be considered a "course correction" toward a more ideological mean. The United States may have tested the outer bounds of how far left it wants to be, and is bouncing back now.

No, I don't mind environmentalism being taught in school. In most schools, they teach something called "science," of which environmentalism is a part. Multiculturalism is simply a fact, and one of our great strengths as a nation.

Of course, you missed my point entirely. I didn't address what parents teach or don't teach their children at home. My point was that I don't want my tax dollars to subsidize extremist views like creationism.

The logic of increased enrollment in private school increasing per student cost there (while at the same time, according the voucher opponents here, increasing per pupil costs at public schools due to Lower enrollment), eludes me.

And sure, putting greater responsibility on parents, making parents who can afford it pay directly, rather than into a common pool via taxes, is conducive to a more responsive, better educational system.

ZORN REPLY -- You're just not thinking this through. The marginal cost of a pupil simply isn't that great until you reach a point when you have to, say, add another teacher, at which point the marginal cost becomes significant.

I didn't miss your point. Your underlying point, whether you are willing to admit it or not, is that views you agree with (such as that environmentalism, such as worship of Nature, is science, and multiculturalism, which is not co-existence of cultures, but acceptance of all values as equal) are not extreme and those you don't agree with are. Have you considered that perhaps someone doesn't want their tax dollar going towards teaching some views that are taught in public schools?

You stipulate your opinions as fact and try to attribute them to me, but again, you've missed the mark. Nothing I said had anything to do with "worship"; in fact, that's my point, that no taxpayer should have to pay for someone else's worship practices. Environmentalism is simply an effort to understand nature, not worship it.

"The logic of increased enrollment in private school increasing per student cost there (while at the same time, according the voucher opponents here, increasing per pupil costs at public schools due to Lower enrollment), eludes me."

@Boris

I don't think anyone is saying costs at public schools will increase. The federal, state and special education mandates will still be in place and need funding. The per student average may rise, but reductions in building and teacher resources due to lower enrollment won't decrease very much. They sure didn't when a few hundred high school students left our school for a new selective enrollment private school a few years ago.

For example, services provided to many special education students would still come out of public school funds. The Individualized Education Program each special needs student receives is protected under state and federal law, and must be funded by same, no matter where the student is located. So, all of those extra support staff would still be covered under public education funding, though the private schools would bear the cost of providing extra space for the smaller classrooms needed, and the hiring of specialized teachers. I believe most private schools won't be able to afford the type of environments/behavior interventions many special ed students need, so will refuse them. However, this is more taxpayer public school funding directed away from the remaining public school students.

I like putting more responsibility on parents, but saying this applies only to those who can afford it creates a subset of parents who aren't obligated or interested in the state of the educational system, they don't have to be, and it cheats the students of these parents of better options. In this country, we shouldn't be asked to focus only upon the students of parents who care, are responsible. I hope as an educator I'm never asked to be put in the position where my best is offered only to a select group of students.

Let’s use your class size example. At first, as enrollment in private schools, many of which were on the brink of closure, goes up, their cost per pupil goes down, very likely way down. If the enrollment continues to grow beyond the capacity (there is actually a natural break here as fewer parents would be eager to enroll kids in crowded schools), resources get a little stretched at first, until the school and its clientele start to worry that it affects the quality of education and make an investment to enlarge the facility. The additions will have, speculatively, as any business expansion, plans for projected enrollment growth for some years to come. Accounting-wise most of the expenditure will be capitalized, but nonetheless, let’s assume that at that point (after a considerable initial fall) the cost per student goes up. At the same time, the class size goes down, and the perceived quality of education goes back up, attracting more enrollments, which drives the cost back down.

@ZORN REPLY -- This is a frivolous, shallow response. It's clear that there isn't a one-to-one

And there it is, the argument that no matter in what direction enrollment moves the costs per student go up! Which means if we were at point A of enrollment, then when to point B, then back to point A, we end up with higher per student costs. That of course can happen, but only in a special case of new facilities being built to go from point A to point B and then the demand not being there.

Eric, if you read carefully, I never said that per student costs would go down in public schools, or even denied that, particularly in the very short term, they would go up. What I said is that most of the public school budget is variable personnel cost, so within a reasonable period of time that cost can go down proportionate to enrollment.

@Wendy's "I like putting more responsibility on parents, but saying this applies only to those who can afford it creates a subset of parents who aren't obligated or interested in the state of the educational system"

It will apply to those who can not afford to pay anything themselves as well - those who would be receiving the maximum amount vouchers. They would not be on average as responsible with it as people spending their own money (and thus having many choices of what to spend on besides education), but way more responsible than they are now, when they are not part of the decision process at all.

By Dienne - "Also, a point that has to be made, Indiana already had 100% school choice within the public system. Any Indiana resident can send his/her/their child(ren) to any Indiana public school, the only stipulation is that if you go outside your local school system, you have to get your kid to the school of your choice on your own, they won't bus except to your local school."

Actually this hasn't always been the case in Indiana, it's the voucher program that is making this possible. In the past, if parents want to send their children to a different school system (public or private) they would have to pay tuition. The voucher system covers the tuition for both public and private schools.

Also, although Catholic schools are parochial, not all parochial schools are Catholic or even Christian. There are currently only 80 private schools that are voucher approved; all are parochial (including one Muslim school). Here a link for that article: http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/tag/school-vouchers/

It's true that most are Catholic, but that is just because the ones that are approved took the time and effort to be accredited by the state.

Lastly, the vouchers will not cover 100% of the tuition for the private schools.

@ZORN REPLY -- Speaking for myself, I recognize the absurdity/futility of saying "If you take our voucher, you can to go St. Bertha's but you can't go to religion class if you do.

May it is absurd, or maybe not, but either way, it is not what I said. I suggested an opt-out opportunity. Very different. And I only brought it up because of all this ridiculous noise about religious indoctrination in Catholic schools. Not something I was advocating myself, but something that would be reasonable for those overly concerned about it to propose instead of slamming the whole voucher idea.

As to this being an intrusion into private businesses: Your approach for avoiding this kind of intrusion into private business, whether you fully realize it or not, is really a path to fewer private businesses and more things run by the government directly. Private colleges that accept students on Federal grants have to accept some rules. Do you propose nationalization of colleges?

If intrusion of government into people's lives were your genuine concern, you would be looking at the whole picture, perhaps even expanding the vision to the point where the parents who have resources pay out of their own pocket directly and the government intrusion in the education industry being limited to tax dollars subsidizing those who can not afford the cost.

OK Joseph, but you seem to be trying to switch horses of your argument in midstream. Your primary contention, as I understood it, the one I responded to, was that it is unconstitutional for tax money to find their ways to religious institutions, not that with public money, flowing even indirectly, come rules. The latter point I don't have so much disagreement with in principle (note even my suggestion of what kind of rules might be demanded of schools to satisfy your concerns), albeit we may disagree in a lot of detail

OK, Boris, how would YOU guarantee minimal standards in a school that was funded partly or wholly by tax vouchers? Or would you? Would it be a case where anything goes and your precious free market would sort everything out?

Suppose someone started a school and said, "All white people are free to send their children here, and they'll get a big tax break if they do. Meanwhile, children of other races can go find another school." Would you be OK with that tax break?

@ZORN
P.S. Average and marginal costs are very different concepts with very different applications. Because the base tuition will be the same for everyone, average cost will be used in setting tuition. Marginal cost will be used in deciding at what point to stop enrollment.

Since we collectively agree, albeit perhaps to different extends, that some level of education produces "public/common good" and therefore public (tax) funds will be used to achieve that level, there is nothing wrong, as I already said several times, with setting rules for the use of vouchers. Milwaukee have had vouchers for over two decades now and the sky hasn't fallen down.

(If free market - i.e. individual economic freedom - is not precious to you, do everyone a favor, relocate to Cuba, you'll have a blast.

I met some homeschooled kids, and they were way smarter, knowledgeable and mature than their public schooled contemporaries. Parents homeschool kids for a variety of reasons. Your slam of homeschooling is ignorant.

Webster definition of environmentalism: "advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment". ADVOCACY, not science, not even study of Nature. Does Advocacy belong in schools?

Oh, I don't watch Fox. I hate it. Multiculturalism, according to thefreedictionary.com is "the policy of maintaining a diversity of ethnic cultures within a community" and "the doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can coexist peacefully and equitably in a single country". POLICY and DOCTRINE. Not science. Does political indoctrination belong in schools?

Aside from definitions, I had a kid in public schools. I have a pretty good idea what was taught.

"Suppose someone started a school and said, "All white people are free to send their children here....."

Suppose Chicago were to pass a law saying that all private schools and all magnet schools in the city had to maintain the same racial makeup as the Chicago Public Schools. How many liberals do you think would remain in the city?

@Pan re "So, no answer to my question above?"
You seem to be unable to gleam a specific answer from a more general one, with public money come reasonable rules of where the money can be used to stick to the goals of that publicly financed program. In education, the obvious existing example is that of colleges and government student grants.

@Boris: You seem to be unable to answer a simple question. Is it reasonable, in your view, to tell a school taking public money--in any guise, including vouchers--that they may not exclude students of certain races?

@Pan
Strange that you are unable to make a simple inference from both the general principle and a very specific existing example where this question was already answered.

Yes, it is reasonable, because it is consistent with the educational common good goal that gives rise to that public financing to begin with. In other situations, when the reasons for the program are different, for example: welfare checks, we don't impose the same restrictions/certification of vendors.

Given the precedents of colleges and existing voucher programs, raising this issue, Pan, was a total red herring.

@Boris
I don't think so. Rand Paul, whom I'm willing to bet you like a whole lot better than I do, famously said he wasn't sure civil-rights accommodations laws were necessary. In any case, when confronted with segregation academies, this is the sort of question that a voucher program would have to sort out.

a) I don't like Rand Paul. But of course I can not judge which one of us dislikes him more. Beyond the individual, my guess is that there isn't a single one of his positions you approve of, and I might approve of some (if I ignore how he might have arrived at it or how well he really understands it.)

b) Civil-rights accommodations laws is an entirely different topic since it is not about someone receiving tax money.

c) As I mentioned, in Milwaukee school vouchers have been in place for over two decades. They also have had long runs in other places as well. You seem to treat vouchers as something new, with big issues still not encountered, not unexplored and not yet addressed issues and questions. That doesn't seem likely. If you do have such a concern, look up all the existing voucher programs and their school certification requirements. If you don't find the issue being dealt with, your concern is legitimate. But even in that case, the framework already exists in higher education.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.